The Trojan ass : Asinarius as mock epic

The medieval narrative poem Asinarius (late 12th early 13th c.) has commonly been considered a fairy tale ante litteram, predating the self-conscious development of the literary genre from early modem times onward. Under influence of the deeply rooted notion that fairy tales have their origins in oral-folkloric traditions, scholars who have studied this text have tended to do so in terms of its supposed indebtedness to folktales, possibly even derived from Indian mythology. Meanwhile, its essential nature as a piece of Latin literature has been largely neglected. This article proposes a literary contextualizing of the text, situating it within the broader field of Latin literature. More specifically, it argues that the Asinarius poet playfully engages with epic texts, both ancient and contemporary, dealing with the matter of Troy. Thus, the reader is invited to a mock-epic reading of the poem, all too easily obfuscated today by an anachronistic "Grimmian" perspective

Discussion of `Causation and Graphical Models?

C

Top-quark mass measurements at the LHC

The top-quark mass mt is one of the fundamental parameters of the standard model (SM) of particle physics. The CDF and D0 collaborations already performed very precise measurements of mt . Since the ATLAS and CMS collaborations already have a very large sample of top quark pairs available for analysis, they are producing results with increasing precision. An overview of the most recent measurements of mt by ATLAS and CMS is given, using up to 4.7 fb-1 of data in different ttbar decay channels. The measurement of the mass difference between top and antitop quarks is also shown. Finally, the combination of the individually measured mt values is discussed, together with an outlook for future mt measurements.Comment: Moriond QCD 2012 (5 pages, 1 figure

When societies crash : a critical analysis of news media's social role in the aftermath of national disasters

Apart from their primary role as news providers in disaster situations, news media can also assume a broader social role. Drawing on a critically informed qualitative content analysis of the Belgian news reporting on a national disaster, the article reveals a twofold articulation of this social role. The first consisted in newspapers highlighting the emotional dimension with potential societal implications of raising compassion and identification. Second, we found a strong articulation of a discourse of (national) unity and community, aimed at restoring the disrupted social order in the disaster’s aftermath. Both aspects were discursively established by a dominant presence of emotional testimonies, strategies of personalization and by the use of inclusive language permeated with references to nation or community. The study highlights the important social role of journalism in disaster situations and events involving human suffering